Banner & Reunion Displays

[Alan SHARP]

Greetings.

Reunion Display Tips.

Seeing trish58's forum seeking banner paper has prompted me to share how I now display material at the family reunions, which I have been attending for over thirty years.

Our Big Barn Stationer has great BACK to SCHOOL prices in January. A few years ago I bought a very cheap and simple A4 laminator (GBC Creative Laminator). Packets of 100 x 80g laminate pouches also sell for half price, so I stock up. Laminated sheets protect pages from the weather, greasy hands, sticky tape, blue tack, and re-use.

All material that I might like to display, is printed out in A4 format on paper and laminated. Then sets are made up of the pages I want side by side. I lay them face down and sticky-tape the join between the individual laminates. They are then folded zig-zag fashion into piles, that get stored in cardboard shoe boxes or cartons.

To display them all, I have purchased 0.9 x 1.8 meter and/or 1.2 x 2.4 meter sheets of ‘corflute’ plastic. (Corrugated plastic used for temporary signs) When I had a farm truck size did not matter, but for the BALLARD Reunion last March, I purchased two 1.2 x 2.4m sheets and used a craft knife to cut half way through at half the width, and folded the sheets lengthwise intending to complete the cut, making four sheets 600mm x 2.4 but had second thoughts, and just left the sheets folded in two. I was just able to fit them in a small Suzuki Swift, hatch back, and transport them 80km.

Once at the country hall being used, I opened the sheets out to their full size. Stretched the folded laminate ‘sets’ out, and arranged them in some sort of order, then just roughly celotaped all laminated sets to the corflute backing. The big sheets of plastic were then hung, with string, along the back wall. (Windows and lintels made good anchorage points for the string.) On a big sheet it is possible to display 40 A4 pages, roughly at eye level, and the material is easier for attendees to see, than even the material scattered over trestle tables. After the event it is easy to peel off the attaching sticky tape, and re-store the folded laminated sets of info. The Excel spreadsheet of family descendents covered 12 pages, so I made two six page sets of them, and worked other pages around that copy in the display. (10 portrait or 8 landscape laminates per long row)

PM me if you would like to see a photo of such a display.

Happy reunions.

Alan SHARP.

[Anne H]

Gosh, such a lot of work, Alan...shows dedication!

Regards,
Anne H